The Prairie provinces had already written to their respective RCMP divisions, indicating that no provincial funding should be used to confiscate legal firearms.
“Instead, funding should be used to fight the criminal misuse of firearms by tackling border integrity, smuggling, and trafficking,” the statement said.
The Epoch Times sought comment from Public Safety Canada, which replied that it had forwarded the request to Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino’s office. No response was received by publication time.
‘Expensive and Inefficient’
Alberta Minister of Justice and Solicitor General Tyler Shandro said the Liberal government contradicted its earlier claim that it would not have law enforcement administer the program due to high costs.“Two years ago, the federal government said that using police resources would be ‘expensive and inefficient.’ Now the federal government has resorted to using police resources to seize firearms from Canadians,” Shandro said in the joint statement.
“Make no mistake, the federal firearms confiscation program will cost us billions and will not improve public safety,” Shandro said, adding that the Alberta government is “not legally obligated” to provide the resources and “will not do so.”
‘Fair Buyback Program’
In his testimony before the Public Safety Committee on Oct. 4, Mendicino said he will focus on “plan A” when asked by Conservative MP Tako Van Popta if he has a “plan B” in place should provinces refuse to participate in the buyback program.“Advancing a fair buyback program that will compensate law-abiding gun owners for the assault-style rifles that they originally purchased lawfully is consistent with keeping our community safe, and we will always be collaborative with our provincial and territorial partners,” Mendicino said.
“My door will always be open to working with them in a wide variety of priorities to achieve that goal.”
“While we fully support crime initiatives that focus on the issues related to the criminal use of illegal firearms, preventing and combating gang violence, and addressing the issue of illegal or smuggled guns in our province, we don’t support those that impact law-abiding hunters, sport shooters, ranchers, farmers, and Indigenous people who use firearms for lawful and good reasons,” they said.
‘Little Impact on Criminals’
Manitoba, which joined in pushing back on the feds’ buyback program on Sept. 28, said in the statement that the confiscation will have “little impact” on criminals but will “further erode” policing resources in the province.“Manitoba has consistently stated that many aspects of the federal approach to gun crimes unnecessarily target lawful gun owners while having little impact on criminals, who are unlikely to follow gun regulations in any event,” said Kelvin Goertzen, minister of justice and attorney general.
“In Manitoba’s view, any buy-back program cannot further erode our scarce provincial police resources already suffering from large vacancy rates, and away from focusing on investigation of violent crimes.”
New Brunswick’s Public Safety Minister Kris Austin wants the RCMP to focus on policing instead of using their “limited resources” to participate in the buyback program.
“New Brunswick’s bottom line is this: RCMP resources are spread thin as it is. We have made it clear to the Government of Canada that we cannot condone any use of those limited resources, at all, in their planned buyback program,” Austin said.